The Great European Adventure, Day 6: Florencefeatured

Everyone I know who has ever visited Florence is obsessed with Florence.

When I’d bring up visiting Italy, their eyes would light up and they’d wax poetic about the art and the history and shopping. And the food, oh the food. The best, they’d say.

There were lofty expectations in place for Florence long before we ever docked in La Spezia, and I was overwhelmed long before my foot ever touched Tuscan soil. Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance. The Medici dynasty? The art of Michelangelo, da Vinci and Botticelli? The works of Machiavelli? Florence. Centuries old culturally rich origins that inundated the pages of my high school history books. How do you prepare to experience that? I couldn’t even figure out how to anticipate it.

Buongiorno, La Spezia

An early excursion meant an early wake up, but I woke up in the best way possible: to my sister shaking me awake, excitedly telling me to look out the window. “I think it’s Cinque Terre, Nicole!” I wasn’t sure if it was (or wasn’t), but as we sailed inland towards La Spezia, I was immediately captivated by the colors of the buildings lining the landscape.

We grabbed a quick breakfast at the Windjammer, which was much busier than it had been the previous day in Cannes, but we still managed to find a table quickly. Many days when it was nice out, we’d opt to dine at the outdoor tables and look out as we docked.

Before we headed out to meet our excursion in the theater, we headed upstairs to take in La Spezia. The port and surrounding area are pretty heavily industrial — so much so that you can’t actually walk around the pier (if you aren’t on one of the ship’s excursions, you need to take a shuttle to the entrance of the port). There are three main areas to explore from La Spezia: Pisa (~1 hour by car), Cinque Terre (supposedly less than a half hour by train) and Florence (~2.5 hours by car).

Stephanie and I had gone back and forth on excursions for this one. I wanted to get in some time at Pisa (because LEANING TOWER!!!), but Stephanie was adamant that it’d be a waste of time given all that Florence has offer and that we have a replica of the Leaning Tower in the suburbs of Chicago that I could really take a picture with if I wanted to. Basically, Stephanie’s argument was that Florence had to be our main focus and Pisa would only be a distraction. I couldn’t disagree with that (at least, not on our first visit), so we ultimately settled on the Taste of Florence excursion through Royal Caribbean.

Explore the birthplace of the Renaissance, as you embark on a guided walking tour of Florence before enjoying 3 hours to roam on your own. Stroll bustling city streets alongside your guide for 2.5 hours, passing Piazza del Duomo, Piazza della Signoria, and the 14-century Church of Santa Croce. Traverse the city at your own pace, eating pasta and paninis, visiting renowned galleries and museums, wandering the leather market, or atop Ponte Vecchio bridge.

What I liked about this excursion was that the guided tour was supplemented with heavy free time, so we had an expert walking us through the major sites and then enough free time to independently explore anything that intrigued us along the way. A perfect combination for a first time visit. And with Florence being so far away from the dock in La Spezia, we’d have the added assurance that if we were running late or the bus got stuck in traffic on the way back, the ship would be waiting for us.

A Taste of Florence

We met up with our tour group in the theater and were quickly led outside to another immaculately clean tour bus, where we met our guide for the day, Letizia (who insisted we all call her Leti).

As we pulled out of the port, Leti began giving us a fascinating, comprehensive history of La Spezia as we made our way into the Tuscan countryside.

Once we were on the highway, narrow streets with tall condominium buildings made way to rolling green hills with colorful houses and tall steeples.

We’d pass by white capped mountains and Leti would explain that it wasn’t snow, but rather, Italian granite. When Leti’s commentary would cease, Stephanie and I would plug in some headphones and listen to Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye on repeat. We do schmaltzy stuff like that, sometimes.

Oh, and we passed a Gucci factory, too. Hello, lover.

About two hours into our drive, we made our first stop: the Pierotucci Leather Factory. We had a half hour to observe the leather making process, shop (after all, when you’re in Italy, you have to buy some leather), use the restrooms and redeem a voucher Leti handed out to each of us for a bottle of water.

I wasn’t good about doing my shopping research before we left, so I wasn’t sure what a good deal on leather would be and the prices didn’t seem all that great so I left without a purchase. Mom and Stephanie found some nice coin pouches to take home as souvenirs for friends. Apparently the lower priced baubles and gift sets were hidden away a bit towards the door.

As we left the leather store and headed out on the final leg of our drive to Florence, Leti gave us a small Italian lesson on how to say a few things that would be particularly helpful should we encounter any language barriers (please = per piacere, thank you = grazie, too much = troppo), but the word I picked up on and kept throwing at my family for the rest of the trip? Andiamo! Or, “Let’s go!”

The bus left us off just outside of the main area, and similar to when we entered Saint Paul-de-Vence, I found myself impatiently wondering when we’d get to the good part – that larger than words city that would bring everything I’d learned in high school history classes to life.

And then, through the end of a narrow street, it appeared: our first glimpse of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and Il Duomo di Firenze.

The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore is the main church of Florence (and one of the largest churches in Italy), built in the late 1200s. It’s a behemoth – you can’t fathom how vast and imposing this structure is until you’re standing against it. Even now, I’ll look back at my uncropped pictures where the height of the tourists is dwarfed by the magnitude of this church and my breath hitches a little bit.

The façade is designed in Gothic-inspired marble paneling in patterns so intricate, you could stare at it for hours.

Next, Leti walked us over to the Florence Baptistery to see the Gates of Paradise (a name dubbed by Michelangelo), which depict scenes from the Old Testament. These aren’t the original doors – those are in a museum for safe keeping – but the replicas stand in the same place as the originals did for more than 500 years.

We strolled alongside Leti, paying close attention to the history lesson she was giving us along the way and trying to take in as much as we could of everything around us.

We made our way along the streets of Florence, ultimately coming to stop outside the Piazza della Signoria, where a replica of Michelangelo’s David stands in the same place where the original once stood outside the Palazzo Vecchio. The Piazza della Signoria is the main square of Florence and was (and continues to be) the political center of the city. It’s this big, open space surrounded by these gorgeous, Renaissance-style facades. I’ve said this too much already in this post (and this series of posts, really), but it was a lot to take in. Overwhelming in the most beautiful of ways.

The most fascinating area of the Piazza, for me, was the Loggia dei Lanzi. The Loggia dei Lanzi is a kind of open art gallery featuring rows of Roman sculptures. The famous Medici Lions have been on display at the Loggia dei Lanzi since the late 1700s, but the sculpture that captivated me the most was a bronze sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini called Perseus with the Head of Medusa. Leti told us the sculpture had been standing there since the 1500s. 500+ years. Can you even imagine?!

From the Piazza della Signoria, Leti walked us past the Uffizi gallery, where masterpieces like Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus hang on display. As we were walking past the gallery, we walked past many artists and street vendors and Leti explained to us that if merchandise is on a cart or in a shop, it’s legal, but if the merchandise is on a blanket on the ground, it’s an illegal vendor.

Just beyond the Uffizi Gallery is the Ponte Vecchio, one of the most famous (and oldest) bridges in Italy. The Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval three-arch bridge crossing over the Arno River. What makes the Ponte Vecchio so visually compelling is the colorful storefronts that line the façade of the bridge. It’s unusual and captivating and I spent a good bit of time just standing there, admiring it (then again, I have a thing for bridges and have spent literal hours at Chrissy Field in San Francisco just staring at the Golden Gate).

Once Leti had given us the history of the Ponte Vecchio, she led us on a walk to where our meeting place would be later that afternoon, near the Basilica of Santa Croce. Florence isn’t too big, so as long as we didn’t let ourselves get lost, our walk to the meeting place should be no longer than 15 minutes.

And from there? Leti set us free to do whatever we wanted. The next three hours were ours and I was really glad we’d done an excursion that began with a guided walking tour because it provided the perfect context and balance for our free time, and it gave us a good sense of the layout of the city. We could tour the Uffizi Gallery. We could cross the Ponte Vecchio. We could shop at the leather market or climb to the top of Il Duomo. But first thing on our mind? Finding a good place to have lunch!

We roamed the streets, checking out the menu of each restaurant we passed (and there were many). There were so many options that we couldn’t decide which one sounded the best – they ALL looked good – and we ended up at the closest one when Mom was too hungry to keep looking, a small café called Caffé San Firenze. Caffé San Firenze wasn’t a traditional restaurant, but rather a European style cafeteria where you could grab a quick snack or light meal.

There were so many options on display, but I’m a cheese girl and a large board of local Italian cheeses caught my eye, and with my first real Italian cappuccino, it made for the perfect lunch. It continued to amaze me how (relatively) inexpensive food was in Europe – my cappuccino, cheese platter and a bottle of water ran me less than €15. A cheese plate like that alone here in Chicago would set me back at least $20.

Full from lunch, we set out to explore the streets of Florence. We’d heard horror stories of pickpockets and gypsies, but at no point did we feel unsafe or did we feel our belongings were at risk.

And we couldn’t very well travel all the way to Italy without getting some gelato! Gelato in Italy is a little more expensive – whereas a cappuccino will only run you €2 or so and you can grab a freshly baked pastry for €1, a scoop of gelato in a cone can run upwards of €6.

With lunch (and a snack) and some aimless wandering under our belts, we set out to finish our visit with some shopping. The shopping game in Florence is among some of the best in the ports we visited and it was slightly unfortunate that Florence was our second port in a series of seven because we held ourselves back a bit. Small boutiques are nestled amongst heavy hitters like Chanel and even H&M. There’s an open-air market with just leather goods. You can even score a pashmina for as little as €5. My must buy from Florence was a leather handbag and I found myself in a small boutique where I scored two gorgeous leather bags for less than €50 (the shop owner handed me back €5 with a wink when I couldn’t decide between a blue bag and a black bag and ultimately bought both).

All that shopping called for a little break for (another) Italian cappuccino. Caffeine overload to have two cappuccinos in one afternoon? Maybe. But they’re so, so good. Nearly every store and café we stopped in had free wifi, but I couldn’t get a decent signal in any of them.

We took our time walking back to our meeting point at the Basilica of Santa Croce, heading back early just in case we got lost while using a paper map Leti had given us as our guide and leaving ourselves enough time to buy some scarves and snap some more pictures.

The rest of our group slowly trickled into the square, but we were a little delayed in our departure as a few people decided to do a last-minute bathroom run before the two and a half hour non-stop drive back to La Spezia.

The ride back was quiet and I alternated napping with looking out the window with some Andrea Bocelli on repeat.

There was a bit of traffic going back into La Spezia, and our bus pulled back into the port just around back onboard time. We said our goodbyes to Leti and headed back to our room to drop off all of our new purchases and freshen up.

Ciao Ciao, La Spezia

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, we headed outside to get some fresh air before dinner. The promenade outside deck five quickly became one of our favorite spots on the ship and we spent much time out there before and after dinners when we wanted a breath of fresh air or to catch the sunset.

We faced no wait for dinner again and were quickly seated at our window table in Lloyd’s area. The food was good, the service was better and chatting with our servers and Marc, the head waiter, became the best part of our dinners.

Albacore Tuna Rillettes

Paupiette of Roast Beef

Greek Salad

Chilled Tropical Mango Soup

Tempura Fried Mahi Mahi and Tiger Shrimp

Lemon and Harissa-Spiced Roasted Chicken

Mexican-Inspired Beef Salad

Dessert – where Lloyd insisted we taste every offering on the menu!

After such a heavy meal, we headed outside to pace the deck and watch the sunset as we sailed out towards Rome.

The first major production show was on the schedule for this evening – a Broadway revue – and I was super excited because there are few things I love more than a good Broadway show. We got to the Masquerade early to get good seats for showtime, but we were a bit taken aback by aggressive bar servers (one who muttered “I knew you weren’t going to order anything” after we politely declined a drink).

I’ve been pretty critical of Carnival’s post-2.0 shows – the elimination of the dance troupe, the switch from actual sets to animatronic screens and the live band getting replaced by an audio track amongst the chief complaints – so I was really excited to see a traditional production show. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite live up to what I’d hoped it would be. The show must have been produced in the 90s and hasn’t been updated since. Everything from the sets to the costumes to the song list was outdated and the only part of the show that shined was the talent of the performers.

After the show, we walked around the ship a bit, checking in on the new offerings in the shops, before heading back to the room to get our stuff together and ready for an early morning in Rome. Our Compass for the next day mentioned worker strikes potentially affecting visits to the Colosseum (a highlight we were really looking forward to) and Stephanie was reading about some Isis threats on Twitter, so as much as we were looking forward to a day in Rome, we closed our day in Florence hoping for a safe visit to our scheduled stops.